Plot bunny for adoption
by Rosa Mundi
Summary: Anybody want to play with this idea? I've got a start, but now I'm stuck.


"And stay there!"

The cupboard door slammed, hard enough that if there had been any dust, it would certainly have cascaded down. The house definitely shook.

Harry didn't notice at all.

Harry sat on his thin mattress, knees hugged against his chest, staring at nothing. For the last year he had been having dreams, a different one every night, wild adventure stories mostly. In all of them, his parents were wizards, not ne'er do wells, and had been killed by an evil wizard terrorist, not in a car crash, and he was the prophesied savior who would kill the evil wizard in return when he got old enough. Beyond that, the stories varied, sometimes a little, sometimes wildly. In one, instead of being left on the doorstep until his aunt and uncle found him, he was picked up and taken home by the milkman and was raised by his family. In one, he was raised by an American superhero. And on and on.

Harry enjoyed the dreams immensely, but figured, with as unwanted as he was at home and as unpromising as his future seemed, it really was no wonder he was dreaming himself a great and powerful hero. It was a lot of fun, but not something to be taken seriously at all.

But then today had gone just as it was supposed to in quite a lot of the dreams: Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, so he got to go to the zoo with the family, where he talked to a snake and the glass vanished. It couldn't be a coincidence, but if the dreams were prophetic on some way, what then? So many different things that might happen, so many different ways he and other people might act. What should he do, who should he trust, and was there any way to prevent some of the horror and suffering?

The next morning, Harry noted that this stint in the closet looked like it would take a while, so if nothing else, he had plenty of time to think. With all the things that varied wildly from dream to dream, some things were constant: Hogwarts, the professors, his classmates, Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and the presence of magic itself. He couldn't see any point in just waiting for events to unfold, but he wasn't sure what he could do about them, either. Going to see Mrs. Figg and asking to use her floo to talk to Dumbledore seemed a bit foolhardy, as the question of how trustworthy the headmaster and various professors were was one of his biggest ones. Sneaking the use of the telephone could work, but who would he call? Since Severus Snape had not turned up to adopt him any time in the last ten years, it was probably a safe bet that he still hated him. Remus Lupin might be living in the muggle world, but he didn't seem the most trustworthy either. The Grangers or the Creeveys would probably not be too difficult to find, but they wouldn't know about magic yet. Going to talk to Mrs. Figg was essentially going to Dumbledore.

The days in the cupboard dragged on. Harry made copious notes on every name he could remember and what he might know about them, including the contradictory bits. It was rather overwhelming. Just about everyone he would be meeting (still assuming it all to be true) could be friend or foe, depending on which version of events was the correct one. Were the Weasleys going to be the family he'd always wanted, or were they going to steal his money and trap him into marrying their daughter? Would Draco Malfoy be an evil twit or his soulmate? Would he be able to get along with Severus Snape at all? And central to everything, who is Albus Dumbledore really?

By the time he was free to leave the cupboard, he had determined three things: one, sitting down with his aunt and uncle to discuss everything was his last resort option; two, he wanted to be sure and get the first letter and answer it; and three, if he were to try to contact anyone, Ted Tonks would probably be his best bet, with Severus Snape a distant second. Also, he wanted to take another look at Mrs. Figg's cats.

First, though, he wanted to find something to indicate that the magical world was real. Weird things had been happening around him all his life. Could he have made the glass disappear because he dreamed about making the glass disappear rather than because he was fated to do so? Dropping by Mrs. Figg's and looking for floo powder or other evidence of the magical world could work the same way - he'd dreamed the details because he had seen them already without realizing it.

That morning, Harry headed off to the library and spent the entire day finding all the Theodore, Ted, or T. Tonkses he could in the phone directories. He still wasn't sure if he could get away with using the phone, but if he could, calling them all until he found Andromeda might work, and if he couldn't find her, that was evidence that he'd made the whole thing up. He also looked at maps of northern towns, to see how many Spinners Ends there were, just in case, and looked for and found Drs. Daniel and Emma Granger, wondering if he called, asked for Hermione, and, if she existed, asked her if she had met Professor McGonnagle yet would convince them he was barking mad.


End file.
